Mr. Erdoğan, don’t leave Çankaya Mansion

During my academic career, I used to live in a basement a few meters away from the Çankaya Presidential Mansion. Gülümsün, our daughter, had not started school yet. While taking her for walks, we would come across the flag ceremony of the Presidential Guard Regiment. I would explain to her Çankaya’s importance.

Çankaya means the same as it does to the majority of Turkey. It is the rebirth of a nation from its ashes.

It was the re-beating of the heart of Anatolia, of our lost motherland. This place is the symbol of the exit from an era when the population was wrecked by the sorrow in the Balkans, the misery in the Caucuses and the betrayal in the Middle East, when even a tiny piece of land in Anatolia was made unbearable for us.

It is the monument of a nation standing up on its feet again.  

In other words, Çankaya is colossal in the hearts of the people of the Republic… It is too big for anybody to just wipe it away.

When I first entered Çankaya as a journalist, when I saw the building where Atatürk made his historic decisions, this was the voice coming from my inner soul:

“My god, how can such a modest monument be erected over such an immense memory…”

I understood that day that this devoted generation had retreated to the borders of modesty and established this nation with blood and sacrifice.

History is written, not by buildings, but by the soul inside…

Now I want to call out to you as a citizen who has a Republic of Turkey identity/citizenship number, dear president…   

You were wrong by abandoning this place...

If I am not mistaken, by making this decision, I think you want to write a brand new history for yourself.

You have served this country very well. We, the chronic opponents, those who lose all the time accept this reality...

However, be sure no matter what you do, it will never be bigger than the War of Independence, which this building symbolizes...

Dear president,

Big states do not easily knock down their symbols. Russian leaders, where Lenin’s statues were broken, did not leave the Kremlin. No president in America would leave the White House.    

If you want to take a look at those who attempted to write history by constructing new buildings for themselves, take a look at the countries to our eastern border. None of them were able to engrave their names in history with golden letters.

You are the first president of Turkey elected by direct popular vote. Even though the vote you received was 51 percent, you are the president representing all of us.

I am looking at Çankaya, which you are leaving. And, I am looking at that new building you are preparing to move into...

In one of them, I see the monumental silhouette of a joint past connecting all of us, engraved in all of our souls. However, unfortunately, that other building you are preparing to move into tells me of a segmented country with broken hearts and feelings of marginalization.

In other words, that building is not quite full… Because it does not have a soul…     

Be sure the soul of this nation, which was reborn from its ashes, will continue to live in Çankaya.

The stance of challenging the past that you are demonstrating by sending a demoted prime minister there will not be enough to destroy its soul.

We will all bear witness to this…

And be sure that the first president succeeding you will move back into that building…